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The campaign period is officially underway for the four candidates running for the role of President of OUSA in the upcoming by-election.
 
Candidates are current Acting President Bradley Russell, Welfare Officer Shonelle Eastwood, Colleges and Communications Representative Francisco Hernandez, and Commerce student Logan Edgar, self professed “People’s President.”
 
OUSA held a Presidential Student Forum on Thursday May 26 at 5pm for students to ask the candidates questions about “the big issues.” At the height of attendance, Critic counted 50 people present in Burns 2, which fluctuated throughout the forum as people walked out before it finished. It become apparent that this was poor decision-making on their parts as the pizza came at 6.30pm.
 
The four candidates fielded a variety of questions from MC Julia Hollingsworth and students, both in the audience and via the chat function from the online streaming of the forum. Just to clear up any confusion, the questions were NOT coming from ChatRoulette as Russell suggested. People had turned up to see presidential candidates, not the rotting infected penis of someone in Eastern Europe.
 
OUSA’s sustainability in a VSM environment, transparency and communication with students were among leading issues. While the forum debate was difficult to follow through mumblings and general incoherency, Critic picked up the general gist of the candidate’s policies as being VSM = bad, wanting to be President = good. For what the candidates actually want to achieve if elected President, see page 13 for their campaign blurbs.
 
In one of the more interesting answer rounds of the evening, Edgar said that if he got to pick an animal to be, he would be a house cat, because they’re “so chilled. You look at their food and it’s yuck, but they think it’s yum. That’d be awesome.” Hernandez decided he would be a sponge, at which point an audience member highlighted that he had managed to pick something without a brain. Less imaginatively, Eastwood picked a pony and Russell picked a liger – at least both of those have the ability to think though.
 
Critic took a straw poll at both the beginning and end of the forum. Out of a total of 39 votes at the start, Edgar got ten votes, Hernandez got six, Eastwood got five, and Russell got four. By the end of the forum only 27 people were around to vote, and Hernandez had shot up to ten votes, Eastwood got six, Edgar was down to five, and Russell only got two.
 
As Critic went to print, only Edgar seemed to have a Facebook campaign - with a whopping 393 followers before voting has even opened. By comparison, Russell’s group for Administrative Vice President from 2010 has 84 members. Hernandez’s Facebook campaign for Colleges and Communications Rep has 30 people “liking” it, and Eastwood’s campaign, which she encouraged “friends/flatmates/all other gremlins :)” to join had 25 people attending. By-elections traditionally have a lower following and voter turnout than elections, so 393 followers is relatively impressive. With policies like “No more natural disasters,” Edgar could be about to take OUSA by storm.
 
In some of the more lolsy moments of the night, Edgar tried to take a “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” style lifeline when asked a tricky question – no 50/50 on this one, sorry champ. Hernandez managed to make mention of the Communist Party of France owning shipping ports, while Russell and Eastwood were forced to spend a good portion of the forum defending (or not, as the case may be) the recent actions of the OUSA Executive.
 
Critic also spluttered and choked through Hernandez’s suggestion that reporters should be sent along to OUSA Committee meetings. Our budget doesn’t quite cover having someone running around full-time whenever one of the multitude of OUSA Committees is meeting, nor do we have the funds to pay for a straightjacket to drag an unsuspecting reporter along to any of those. Soz.
 
Candidates will be around campus all week campaigning, and voting in the election is open from 9am Wednesday June 1, til 4pm Friday June 3.